Overwhelmed: Leading Ammo Manufacturer Temporarily Suspends Production: “There Is No Conspiracy To Shut Us Down”

Citing extreme demand over the last year the Hornady Manufacturing company, one of the leading producers of ammunition globally, has temporarily suspended production of over 150 bullet and ammunition types in order to focus their productive capacity on more popular products.

In a statement posted on the Hornady web site the firm explains that though they have increased capacity and shipments over the last year, their efforts have been overshadowed by an increase in demand of over 200%.

Effective immediately, Hornady will focus its efforts on producing their most popular calibers, while suspending the production of lesser known projectiles and ammunition.

In the following message to distributors and retail customers Steve Hornady explains that orders for ammunition are such that it will take nearly two years to clear the existing backlog. He also assuages fears of a government conspiracy to limit ammunition, and assures customers that Hornady will not, and has not, raised their prices.

It’s important for everyone to know that our order demand is extremely high. And, even though we have temporarily suspended the production of some items, what we have left on order will take us almost two years to produce.

There is no conspiracy by the government to shut us down. This is not an effort on our part to raise prices. We haven’t raised prices. If they are higher. that’s at the store level not at the manufacturer.

We’re going to do everything we can by adding people, by adding machinery, and by adding square footage in order to try and make more of what you want to buy.

On the list of items that we’ve kept we have over 270 of our projectiles and over 140 different rounds of ammunition.

There is something in there for everyone, but there may not be some of the less popular items. By cutting down on that list – temporarily suspending them – we’re able to get more up time on our machinery and get more bullets out the door for you.

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We appreciate your patience and we hope that you understand this is a temporary situation only.

Though a good deal of bullets and ammunition will no longer be available, according to Hornady’s most current production list they will still produce their most popular calibers and types like 12-gauge, .22, .223, .308, .38, .45, .50, 9mm, and 7.62x39mm.

Whatever the case, for those hoping to see an end to ammunition supply shortages, given Hornady’s indication that they must run at full capacity for two years just to meet existing demand, in all likelihood the shortages will continue for months or years to come.